I'm an Assistant Professor of Economics at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, a Research Fellow with the Oakland, California-based Independent Institute, a Senior Fellow with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, and a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics. I'm on Twitter: @artcarden.

Let's Be Blunt: It's Time to End the Drug War

April 20 is the counter-culture “holiday” on which lots and lots of people come together to advocate marijuana legalization (or just get high). Should drugs—especially marijuana—be legal? The answer is “yes.” Immediately. Without hesitation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 seized in a civil asset forfeiture. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure. It’s high time to end prohibition. Even if you aren’t willing to go whole-hog and legalize all drugs, at the very least we should legalize marijuana.

For the sake of the argument, let’s go ahead and assume that everything you’ve heard about the dangers of drugs is completely true. That probably means that using drugs is a terrible idea. It doesn’t mean, however, that the drug war is a good idea.

Prohibition is a textbook example of a policy with negative unintended consequences. Literally: it’s an example in the textbook I use in my introductory economics classes (Cowen and Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics if you’re curious) and in the most popular introductory economics textbook in the world (by N. Gregory Mankiw).The demand curve for drugs is extremely inelastic, meaning that people don’t change their drug consumption very much in response to changes in prices. Therefore, vigorous enforcement means higher prices and higher revenues for drug dealers. In fact, I’ll defer to Cowen and Tabarrok—page 60 of the first edition, if you’re still curious—for a discussion of the basic economic logic:

The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her.

People associate the drug trade with crime and violence; indeed, the newspapers occasionally feature stories about drug kingpins doing horrifying things to underlings and competitors. These aren’t caused by the drugs themselves but from the fact that they are illegal (which means the market is underground) and addictive (which means demanders aren’t very price sensitive).

Those same newspapers will also occasionally feature articles about how this or that major dealer has been taken down or about how this or that quantity of drugs was taken off the streets. Apparently we’re to take from this the idea that we’re going to “win” the war on drugs. Apparently. It’s alleged that this is only a step toward getting “Mister Big,” but even if the government gets “Mister Big,” it’s not going to matter. Apple didn’t disappear after Steve Jobs died. Getting “Mr. Big” won’t win the drug war. As I pointed out almost a year ago, economist and drug policy expert Jeffrey Miron estimates that we would have a lot less violence without a war on drugs.

At the recent Association of Private Enterprise Education conference, David Henderson from the Naval Postgraduate School pointed out the myriad ways in which government promises to make us safer in fact imperil our safety and security. The drug war is an obvious example: in the name of making us safer and protecting us from drugs, we are actually put in greater danger. Without meaning to, the drug warriors have turned American cities into war zones and eroded the very freedoms we hold dear.

Freedom of contract has been abridged in the name of keeping us “safe” from drugs. Private property is less secure because it can be seized if it is implicated in a drug crime (this also flushes the doctrine of “innocent until proven guilty” out the window). The drug war has been used as a pretext for clamping down on immigration. Not surprisingly, the drug war has turned some of our neighborhoods into war zones. We are warehousing productive young people in prisons at an alarming rate all in the name of a war that cannot be won.

Albert Einstein is reported to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this definition, the drug war is insane. We are no safer, and we are certainly less free because of concerted efforts to wage war on drugs. It’s time to stop the insanity and end prohibition.

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You can’t fight the law of supply and demand, with Policing. You have never been able to EVER or ANYWHERE. Since the “War On Drugs” for 40+ years has not been any kind of success. And is only an additional burden on law enforcement. How bout this you tired old Meathead. Regulate, control, tax, become a registered user policy. Step to the side with all your broken rhetoric and let this country get on with itself. BTW I’m retired NYPD, and have seen the “War On Drugs” up close and personal.

Let me ask you a question, have you ever enjoyed a beer? A glass of wine? Mind you that the drug alcohol was once illegal. Just because there is a law saying something is illegal, it does not make the law right. It was once illegal for black to enter a white cafe, had they done so they would be beaten and sentenced to jail, most likely hard labour. Are you saying this is OK, that those black people who entered a white only cafe were aware of what they were doing, and having made the decision to break the law and having been beaten and placed in a chain gang that they should not complain about it and that they should not speak out about being “prosecuted” for their mistake of entering a white only cafe? We must challenge the laws that are unjust. Drug laws are just that. Would you agree that I do not have the right to tell you what you can and can’t consume? That I do not have the right to tell you what you can and can’t think? It is a fundamental human right to be able to choose what we consume. Alcohol is just as dangerous as heroin, though I would not dream of telling you that you can’t have a drink in the comfort of your own home nor would I dream of telling someone that they can’t shoot up heroin in their home. Yes you might say well the heroin addict can resort to crime, though what about the alcohol addict who gets in his or her car and then infringes on my right of life? Because the threat is there that the substance may lead the person to infringe on my rights we should still not limit their rights based on a probability. That is what we do. We limit the rights of individuals based on the assumption that if we do not it will lead to the infringement of other rights. Take the war on terror, we give up our right to illegal search and seizure in the name of protecting our right to life. So yes it is unjust imprisonment, just as Nelson Mandela was unjustly imprisoned for breaking the law.

chris i agree with you sound very informed im writing a rsearch paper about legalzing maraijuana and am trying to broden the paper by encompassing several consequences for the war on drugs and would like some pointers or tips maybe sights that i could use?

chris i agree with you; you sound very informed im writing a research paper about legalizing maraijuana and am trying to broaden the paper by encompassing several consequences for the war on drugs and would like some pointers or tips maybe even web sites that i could use?

Outside in, your title is perfect for someone who obviously lives in their own little corner of the world and has no clue to what is going on in the real world. Like I always say “Thank God for all kinds of people” if we had only ignorant people in the world we would never evolve.